A Domestic Disarmament Plan

June 21, 1992

This nation is stricken by an epidemic that grows more deadly by the day because it goes largely untreated.

The epidemic is guns. Its victims are the incredible number of persons killing and being killed with them. Especially among the young, guns have become a too-handy means of settling the scores that used to be handled with fists or sticks or knives. And the guns of choice increasingly are automatic or semi-automatic weapons that reward even unskilled aim with a quick spray of killing potential.

More than 24,000 people were murdered last year in the United States, a record. Three-quarters of them were killed with guns. Homicide has become the nation`s 10th leading cause of death. Suicide, also most frequently committed with guns, is the 8th.

As frightening as this violence has become to those old enough to remember a safer time, it is young people who now are most likely to be victims.

Homicide rates for children and teens have more than doubled over the past three decades. Murder is the second most common cause of death among Americans 15 to 24 years old, and the most common for young black men.

And it`s far from just an inner-city problem that others can escape by turning off the evening news. Murder rates for young suburbanites also are surging.

These and other data were marshalled by American Medical Association journals this month to document the destructive toll of guns. By affording extraordinary legal and political protection to guns, this country suffers homicide and weapon-injury rates that far exceed those of other industrialized nations. Young American men face odds of being murdered that are 4 to 36 times higher than those in other developed countries.

The only widespread strategy of recent years-building more prisons and penning up more people-hasn`t stemmed the violence despite the huge costs it entails. More comprehensive, targeted, preventive strategies must be undertaken.

While firearm deaths have soared, the rate of deaths in vehicle crashes-long the largest category of injury fatalities-has fallen significantly. This is the result of a long-term, nationwide safety campaign that has included seat belt laws, drunk-driving and speeding crackdowns, and safer cars and roads. In at least two states, gun deaths now outnumber those in traffic accidents.

An even more aggressive, persistent campaign will be needed to stop the explosion of gun use, an effort that has to combine comprehensive federal legislation with a sustained public education message. Guns flourish because of unique, archaic legal protections, cloaked in a dangerous mystique that fuses constitutional misinterpretation with frontier romanticism, in ways that are foolish, irresponsible and intolerable.

It has to be a national effort. Local restrictions serve as substantive expressions of community will, but they have little chance of being effective as long as weapons are readily available in the town next door.

No realist can expect to see effective gun control right away. Too few politicians have had the guts to stand up to the National Rifle Association`s shrill threats. But the growing death toll has to galvanize momentum for change.

Seven of every 10 Chicagoans murdered last year were killed with guns. Ninety-five percent of these were handguns or semi-automatic weapons. A surge in firearm deaths accounts for the entire 40 percent increase in Chicago homicides over the past decade.

Guns whose primary utility is for killing people have to be brought under stringent nationwide control, with federal licensing of firearms and the outlawing of assault weapons, easily concealable handguns and devices that convert guns to rapid-fire automatics.

Despite what gun-lobby zealots would have us believe, no constitutional question is involved. The Supreme Court has held that the 2nd Amendment`s right to ``bear arms`` must be read in relation to preservation of ``a well regulated militia,`` and that firearm curbs do not infringe this. The only militia being preserved by easy access to handguns and assault weapons are the armies of street gangs and drug dealers.

Handgun owners most often say they have a gun to defend themselves against crime, but they are 43 times more likely to kill themselves or family members than to shoot a criminal in their homes.

Combined with a strict crackdown on the most murderous weapons, gun owners should be required to undergo the kind of training, licensing and demonstration of capability that is required of drivers. And, as with their own cars, adults should have a responsibility to keep loaded firearms out of children`s hands.

More than three-quarters of the 989 people charged with murder last year in Chicago already had a criminal record. Almost half were under 21. The overwhelming majority of the teenage killers used guns.